The removal of dirt and debris from streets, parking lots, airport runways, factory floors, and other similar paved surfaces, through the use of various types of street cleaning vehicles or factory sweeping vehicles, as may be the case, has been known for many years. For the sake of brevity, clarity and simplicity, such vehicles will be generally referred to in this document as surface cleaning vehicles.
Conventional surface cleaning vehicles comprise a surface cleaning mechanism, such as a sweeping broom, a recirculating air type air head, or a vacuum air head. Most commonly, such surface cleaning mechanisms are permanently mounted on a truck frame. Alternatively, such surface cleaning mechanisms are removably connected to a tractor, either securely attached to the three point hitch for direct turning with the tractor, or connected in freely pivoting relation to the towbar. The tractors being referred to are typically conventional unitary frame--or in other words are non-articulated--utility type tractors, manufactured by companies such as Ford, John Deere, Massey Ferguson, among others. Such conventional tractors are powered by an internal combustion engine that typically can produce about sixty-five to seventy horsepower.
Utility type surface cleaning vehicles have inherent cost and overall operational advantages over truck type surface cleaning vehicles in that the tractors can additionally be used to perform other tasks, such as ploughing snow, cutting grass, and so on. However, in spite of these advantages that are extremely important to the owners or operators of such vehicles, utility type surface cleaning vehicles are much less popular than truck type surface cleaning vehicles largely due to their overall performance, And also due to their slow maximum speed while travelling between work sites.
A serious drawback with utility type surface cleaning vehicles is that the main surface cleaning apparatus--excluding the gutter brooms, the debris hopper, and the debris transfer apparatus are all positioned behind the tractor, and the gutter brooms are positioned in front of the tractor. Accordingly, the overall vehicle is quite long, which means that is difficult for such utility type surface cleaning vehicles to safely and properly manoeuver around objects on a city street, to accurately turn corners in a city block while maintaining one gutter broom properly against a curb, and so on. Further, it is extremely difficult, to turn around such a utility type surface cleaning vehicle in a dead-end street, which is unacceptable.
In some utility type surface cleaning vehicles, both the gutter brooms and the hopper are located behind the tractor portion. Accordingly, the overall vehicle is extremely long, thus making it even more difficult to manoeuver
Further, during the operation of the surface cleaning vehicle, it is necessary for the operator to look in a rearward direction in order to watch the main surface cleaning apparatus and to properly follow the curb. This is potentially dangerous since it is necessary for the operator to look in a forward direction in order to watch the road in general and to view the gutter brooms, to ensure that the gutter brooms are disposed in contacting relation with the curb. Accordingly, in a utility type surface cleaning vehicle, it is very undesirable to have the main surface cleaning apparatus disposed behind the tractor.
It is therefore very important that utility type surface cleaning vehicles are as short as reasonably possible.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a utility type surface cleaning vehicle that is less lengthy than prior art utility type surface cleaning vehicles.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a utility type surface cleaning vehicle that is easier to manoeuver than prior art utility type surface cleaning vehicles.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a utility type surface cleaning vehicle wherein the main surface cleaning apparatus is not disposed behind the tractor.